Romney Considers Overseas Trip to Show Foreign Policy Bona Fides

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is mulling a five-country tour later this month to seize an advantage over President Barack Obama on foreign policy, sources told Politico.

Romney has focused his campaign almost entirely on domestic policy until now. Some in the political class see President Obama with a strong advantage over Romney on foreign policy, given the killing of terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden and several other successes.

But others see Obama as vulnerable over issues such as the United States relationship with Israel and anti-nuclear policy toward Iran.

Romney’s possible trip would send him to London, Israel, Germany, and Poland. Plans for the trip will be finalized this week if it happens, the sources said. If Romney indeed goes, he’s expected to keep critical comments of Obama to a minimum.

The trip would be designed to show Romney possesses the stature to be a strong commander-in-chief. Obama himself took a similar world tour when he was running for president in 2008.

Some Republicans say Romney should give more prominence to foreign affairs in his campaign.

“He has spoken out on some things, such as the Chinese human rights issue and the threat of Russia,” a veteran Republican foreign policy maven told Politico. “But we have yet to see him present his vision for America’s role in the world more broadly, except in really generic talking points.”

This Republican wants to see something akin to an essay written in Foreign Affairs in 2000 by George W. Bush’s foreign policy aide Condoleezza Rice. “The party needs its nominee to lay out a post-Bush, post-Obama foreign policy.”